


Turnabout is Fair Play

by CondensationOnGlass



Series: Tumblr Prompts- Voltron: Legendary Defender [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fever, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Character, Sick Lance, Sickfic, fever fic, its going to escalate, like literally everyone shows up for a little, turnabout is fairplay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 08:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10716123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CondensationOnGlass/pseuds/CondensationOnGlass
Summary: Iconic pranks, blistering fevers, and fair play.Or, where some of the Paladins pull a joke and then get slammed with guilt about 8 hours later, and for others it is much more immediate.Based off a tumblr post by @taylor-tut. Might change the title. Multichapter, and in progress. I'm slow to update.





	1. Pranking Your Friends For Dummies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taylor_tut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/gifts).



> Based off of this post: https://taylor-tut.tumblr.com/post/159655842338/scenario
> 
> with added ideas by nerdlycharming (which im not posting here to keep it a surprise for ao3 readers).
> 
> I really hope people here enjoy it as well! It seemed really well recieved on tumblr, and I am really honored (and a little more than totally shocked) about that!

To Lance’s credit, he had made it through the mission. The fact he collapsed as soon as he stepped out of Blue back at the castle was another thing. Shiro caught him, and Lance made a crack about how everyone just wanted a bonding moment with him now, didn’t they? Shiro felt less guilty at that point for making Lance go even though he showed up to the briefing pale and shaking.

He assured everyone he was fine, just spent- and weren’t they all? They broke for showers and some rest before the debriefing and sharing more information.

When Pidge woke up before everyone else was even near considering it, they were bored and unamused with the lack of goings on. Running into Allura while wandering, and being offered extra lessons in Altean wasn’t quite the excitement they were looking for. So when Keith emerged from the training room after his cool-down, and almost trance-like training Pidge took the chance.

“Why don’t we do a group lesson, Allura?” Really, Pidge was hoping by making it a bigger deal it would be dropped, but Allura’s face lit up and she clapped her hands in excitement.

“What a wonderful idea! It could be an advance class, you two really seem to grasp more than everyone else so far- no doubt because of your natural preferences,” she winked, knowing Keith was teaching himself to unlock harder training modes and Pidge was learning it through snooping through the castle’s code. “The main recreation area would be best; the holoscreen and space will be good to have.”

Keith shot Pidge a look, why are you getting me dragged into this. Allura pushed them forward with a hand pressed to each of their backs. There was no escape, but even as Pidge sighed and Keith shoved his hands in his pockets, they were both pleased she seemed to be in good spirits despite everything.

The trio cleared the threshold to the rec-room, Allura outlining a plan trying to bridge the differences in what Keith and Pidge knew to find a good common topic to teach them on. She walked right into Keith as he stopped dead and Pidge turned to scoff at the clumsiness when Keith pointed to the couch.

“Lance is here,” He blinked for a second, absorbing the scene, “I thought he was sick. Why is he here?”

“Pfff, wait what?” Pidge stretched to the tip of their toes to see. Lance was indeed curled up on the couch, back pressed to the cushions and arms crossed loosely around himself holding on to a blanket that was usually balled up on one seat or another. “Oh wow, he really did just pass out here, huh.” Pidge nearly skipped forward, trying to keep quiet but all to excited to pry and be nosy.

“Passed out? Is he alright?” Allura’s brows knit together for a moment as Keith started walking forward. He walked with purpose, if Lance was sick enough to sleep somewhere so inappropriate for rest, Keith felt like he shouldn’t let Pidge bother him.

“Earth expression, really informal ‘He fell asleep’ or ‘He went to sleep’. Its not a big deal,” Pidge crouched directly in front of Lance to stare intently at him. Keith could see the cheeky smirk Pidge was holding back and shook his head. “Man, I can’t believe he went to sleep here.”

“We should probably move him. Who just sleeps on a couch? Well, besides this guy.”

“Is that… safe?” Allura had walked up behind them and Pidge jumped when she spoke. How could someone move so quietly, honestly. “If he’s ill…”

“Its just like, a cold. Suuuuuper common on Earth. You get tired and gross and snotty and sometimes get a little warm, but then after like a week and way too many tissues, you’re fine.” Pidge was rooting through their pockets now, distracted by some idea it seemed.

“Its really annoying, and not a problem unless you push yourself too much. But you do get really tired. That’s still no excuse to fall asleep wherever you want and germ up the place though,” Keith frowned. 

“Human routines are so strange. So what do you do for things like this?”  
“Sleep,” Keith answered since Pidge was oh so busy fiddling with their pockets and laughing under their breath, “Drink tea and soup and stuff. Try to take it easy.”

“When I was growing up, if Matt or I got a bad cold or like the flu or something, Mom and Dad would slap a fever sticker on us- it was like. There were some that had colors and stuff for fevers so when you have little kids you don’t have to wake them up all the time and check their temperatures as long as it wasn’t orange. And then there were the ones that were like a tiny icepack. We used those for really bad bruises too, but it was Matt’s idea and Dad really didn’t like when we did that, so he ended up putting them on a higher shelf.”

“I had those cold-pack stickers before. They were really weird, but came in handy a lot when you get stuck home alone and are too tired to deal with anything else.” Keith tilted his head as Pidge finally found whatever they were searching for.  
“Wait, I thought you said it was common, why would you need something to change your core temperatures? That sounds- so invasive.”

“Its how humans evolved. Hunk would know more specifics I think, he kind of showed me the book I learned it from. But- well. Its not a big deal I guess. We’re built to change temperature in a pretty decent range for reasons. There’s just a lot of them, and I really want to just- I have an idea but we gotta act before Lance wakes up.”

“An idea? With a marker?”

“Keith. Please, you went to the Garrison too, there is no way I believe you don’t know what’s going on.”

“I don’t,” Allura whispered. She had crouched down conspiratorially beside Pidge and was looking on with confusion. 

“He’s asleep,” Pidge explained as Keith dropped to his knee on their other side, “back on Earth, if someone fell asleep where they weren’t supposed to, you’d punish them like this.” Pidge uncapped the marker and started by making a round dot on the end of Lance’s nose.

“Oh,” Keith finally followed, “Right. Yeah, I’ve had this happen.” Pidge snickered and mumbled something that sounded like ‘of course’. 

“Actually. I think-” Keith paused. Back before he had dropped out, one day around exams. He had been fighting with the school staff, dealing with all these weird energy signals and plotting them out all night, and was generally stretched pretty thin still digging about Kerebos at the time. He had passed out from exhaustion in the library, and nobody thought to wake him up. He ended up being woken up by someone laughing a little ways away, and he saw Lance and some girl with her hair pulled to the side in a pony tail the next desk over. That was right, Lance and he had that bit of a streak going then! Showing each other up and embarrassing each other in classes and the like. 

Keith snatched the marker from Pidge’s hand as the memory fully formed. Pidge started to protest, but Allura hushed them.

“You said he had to be asleep,” Allura’s eyes were sparkling in a way the paladins never really got to appreciate before; crouched there with them, she almost seemed like another classmate from the Garrison. Keith had been filled with vengeance when he first grabbed the marker, but wasn’t sure what to do with it. When Lance drew on him in the library, however long ago that was now, it was crude rushed scribbles and nothing that he could really remember too well. Aside from the fact it took a good hour or more to scrub enough off before it was faded to almost nothing. It took days to wash off entirely.

“Keith draw something or give it back!” Pidge whispered harshly. Allura giggled, giddy with the prank. For a lack of a better idea, Keith drew whiskers branching off from where Pidge had drawn the nose and left some other dots. He passed the marker to Allura, who took it with a glowing smile. She shuffled a little closer and drew some mouse ears on Lance’s warm forehead, bracing her hand directly between his eyebrows to make sure the lines were clear. 

Lance stirred slightly, moving toward Allura’s hand and she quickly pulled back as she finished the last ear. She covered her mouth to suppress an excited squeak, taking part in some of these human traditions was so much fun.

Pidge took the marker back and leaned in, squinting closely trying to think if anything else needed to be added to their masterpiece collaboration. Lance’s face scrunched and smoothed again under the scrutiny. Pidge decisively added a hastily drawn tongue with a feather-light touch of the marker tip- cautious to keep their hand from touching Lance. With a grin of satisfaction, they scooted back.

“Okay, that should be good.” Pidge gave a thumbs up and Keith reflexively flashed one back. Allura gave her own thumbs up as well, a job well done.

“Do we wake him now and tell him of the prank?” Allura swept herself up to standing as she asked in hushed tones.

“No! The real joy is in the person not knowing and walking around like a damned fool,” Pidge stuffed the marker away into one of the pockets of their cargo shorts. Keith felt a little bad, Lance said he wasn’t feeling well, but he felt like it was a deserved prank. They all joked around a lot, and Lance had been pestering them all with really crappy puns this past week. And as a bonus, he was finally going to get him back after that library thing- about damn time honestly. 

“Well, should we keep our lesson plan then? Or do we… hide behind something like with the ‘bucket over the door’ prank?”

“We should probably leave,” Keith offered, “You don’t want to get caught at the scene of the crime.”

“I thought this was a prank-!” Allura looked startled.

“Another human phrase. Not a real crime, come on, move!” Pidge pushed Allura toward the door and Keith fell in step behind the two of them. They could work in the kitchen, that’s where everyone would end up when they woke up anyway.

\--------------------

Shiro walked into the kitchen in a half-daze and waved at Allura, Keith, and Pidge where they were sitting at the table, leaning over books and practicing Altean pronunciation. He grabbed a water pouch and joined them, listening more than anything, as it was way more advanced sentence structure than he could follow at this point. 

Hunk joined them in much the same way about half a varga later. He flopped into a seat between Keith and Shiro, yawning.  
“Aw man, I feel like I got kicked around inside a tin can. How are you guys so awake already?”

“Been awake for a bit,” Keith answered, Pidge was too busy biting on a pen while Allura tried to explain a particular passage to them, and Shiro was leaning in too. He understood about half of that sentence and it seemed Pidge understood barely any. “Coran came by a few times, updating on where we are and stuff. Apparently, we’re pretty far away already. Plenty of space between us and there.”

“Cool. We doing the debrief soon? I could really use a good stretch, but I don’t want to get any routine started if we’re going to start soon”

“Lance is still asleep, somewhere. I checked his room on the way down,” Shiro shrugged. He leaned back as it seemed Pidge finally had the translation click.  
“He’s in the rec-room. He didn’t even make it to bed, he decided it was okay to just sleep there, I guess.” Keith said.

“Yeah, he was pretty wiped. I’m glad he’s sleeping though, I thought he was for sure going to need a pod after he almost passed out there.” Hunk rubbed his face, starting to feel more alert.

“Aww, you guys just can’t keep ta-tal-TSCHUU“ Lance’s sneeze cut him off, “Talking about a guy like that. See look, you’re making me sneeze. I get it, I’m popular, but come on.” He laughed a shaky laugh that devolved into a brief coughing fit.

“Geeze you sound worse for we-“ Siro looked up at Lance and blinked in wide-eyed surprise. “Um. You look a little worse for wear too.” Hunk turned to look at Lance too. He snorted before pulling himself together. Pidge was grinning down into their work and Allura giggled, both of them avoiding eye contact.

“I definitely feel it,” Lance rolled his shoulders, “We have a thing though, so why not get it over with.” He scratched absentmindedly at his face, right under one of the whiskers Keith had drawn on. 

“Oh man,” Hunk stifled a laugh with a soft exclamation, “I’m sorry, dude, you just- you look really adorable right now underneath the fact you kind of look like death warmed over.”

“Hunk, geeze,” Lance blushed to the tips of his ears. He stared at his feet for a second, Hunk was a friendly guy and said some really affectionate stuff sometimes, but it still caught him off guard when it came from him so sincerely.

“Why don’t you go, uh, wash your face and wake up a little more before we get into it, yeah?” Shiro offered. This was going to be a distraction and a half if it didn’t get dealt with.

“I’m fine to just get it over with. I’d really prefer to,” He wasn’t sure how honest to be. He felt like crap and really just wanted to sleep more. If he could get past the body aches, which woke him up. His skin felt tight, and after a cool shower and some of that really soothing moisturiser he had, he just wanted to curl up and listen to his voicemails again before conking out. He settled for a compromise. “The less time between now and sleeping this off, the better.”

“If you say so, ChuLance,” Allura sat up straighter, fighting with her own joke and smile. She continued with a playful waver to her voice, “So, we found…?”

“Bless you?” Lance took a seat and raised his eyebrow at Allura. “Um, do Alteans sneeze? Why do I feel like I don’t know right now?”

Shiro sighed, so they were doing this now, and poor Lance was going to be the butt of the joke for the whole meeting. He had a good idea who was the ringleader of the idea too, judging by the smug look on Pidge’s face as they leaned their head in their hand and stared at Lance across the table. Keith held his hands in front of his mouth to hide his own tugging grin, and Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose. Hunk was a lost cause for paying attention at this point, practically biting his nails to keep himself quiet and making little motions with his hands as he pictured Lance with mouse ears.

Coran coming in was the last nail in the coffin, and Shiro wondered what he did to have the universe punish him like this.

“Holy quiznak! Man the helm, something’s gone awry- some sort of magickery! A half-transformation spell taking hold!” Shiro slapped his hand to his face as Pidge broke down into ugly laughter, and Keith and Allura following suit with, at least an attempt, at hiding their enjoyment.

“What are you going on about?” Lance twisted in his seat to stare at Coran. His eyebrows drew together, tweaking the drawn mouse ears. Hunk made another noise to try and deal with the situation. “Oh for the love of- Guys what the hell.”  
Lance groaned and swiped his hands over his face, his head was pounding and as bad as he felt earlier was only made worse by the mission and sleep, so he was really coming to the end of his patience quickly. He kneaded his forehead for a few seconds longer to try and ease the ache before bringing down the visual barrier between him and the madness that seemed to take hold of everyone else.  
And then he saw the black smudges on his palms and finger tips.

“Keith! I swear to-“

“Hey,” Keith held his hands up, “You fell asleep somewhere you weren’t supposed to.”

“I’m going to kick your ass!” 

“Oh my god, he finally clicked in,” Pidge smiled, “I’d run if I were you Keith.” Lance tried to launch himself over the table to throttle Keith, and he threw a glare at Pidge too.

“Here, let me fix that up, you smudged your whiskers… Ah!” Pidge teased, but then Lance switched targets and threw one of the, thankfully smaller, notebooks at Pidge. They flinched quickly enough that it just bounced off their shoulder, but the marker they held aloft fell to the table. Allura was sitting proudly and had her hands clasped in front of her, taking in the human ritual of ‘beating-your-goddamn-ass-for-messing-with-me’.

“Dude, chill,” Hunk was pulling ammunition away from Lance as he threw a few pens at Keith who had stood up and backed away from the table. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Lance groaned and pressed his face into the table. His words were distorted by how he pressed his face down. “Huuunnnkkkk, you’re my friend. You’re supposed to have my back, man.”

“I did, well, uh sort of,” Hunk poked his fingers together, “I’m sorry dude, it was just too cute, you had like a little mouse face and-“

Shiro pulled Lance up by his hood, getting the boy to standing even if it was wobbly. He looked winded from the brief activity, paler than even when he stumbled getting back from the mission. Shriro tucked Lance into his side and pressed his flesh hand to the boy’s cheek.

“Lance, you’re burning pretty hot there, come on. This can wait, you need to get that washed off and lay down, I think.” Lance leaned further into Shiro, letting his head lay against Shiro’s shoulder and nodded. He felt so much more drained after that. He gave a half-hearted glare at Keith and Pidge, who at least had the decency to look sorry for what they did now. He gave them both an ‘I’m waitching you’ motion with his hand before letting Shiro pull him away.

\---------------------

“At least they used one that was washable,” Shiro was leaning against the doorframe as Lance scrubbed his face. The boy was so unsteady he didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone until his was horizontal, preferably on a bed, but if the couch was as far as they would go, he’d accept that too. Lance, to give him credit, was holding it together really well. He shivered at the cold water, and was pretty quiet, but he was still going.

“Still, they knew-“ He pumped more soap out of the dispenser and went back to scrubbing at his face as violently as he could manage with his flagging energy, “I said! I said befo-“ 

Lance started coughing again, and Shiro couldn’t stand by idly. He walked over and rubbed Lance’s back, trying to help hold him steady.

“I said before we went out I felt sick.” He scooped up some more fresh water and splashed it over his face. He straightened and leaned in to look at the mirror, running a finger across his cheek. “Look at this, ugh. Its going to stain for days. Its already really dry.” Lance pouted. Honestly his skin was stinging, all over, but especially his face. He plucked the thermometer off the counter. Pidge and Hunk had figured out how to modify an Altean one- which to start looked a lot like one from Earth- so now it read in more familiar measurements. Now there was one in every bathroom, along with the rest of the less intense med-kit supplies.

Shiro kept rubbing Lance’s back. The boy kept leaning, or tipping, back into his hand when he tried to remove it, so he figured Lance needed the contact. He watched Lance place the thermometer under his tongue and waited with him for it to beep. 

Time ticked on, and the tiny machine finally beeped. Lanced pulled it out and grimaced at the number shown. Shiro tipped it so he could read the screen too, feeling a lot like back when he had to help care for younger family members years ago.

“102.7,” Shiro read aloud with a low whistle, “How much worse is it?” He knew Lance would have checked before, especially if he got to the point he told the others he was sick.

“It was only 100-something this morning.” Lance sighed, “’Nd only 99.8 yesterday, all day.”

“Go get some rest, you really need it,” Shiro started to gently steer Lance to his room again, “Looks like you’re in for one hell of a bug.”


	2. When the Quiznak Hits the Fan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are lucky, 2 chapters on the same day, tumblr had to wait like a week and a half.
> 
> I won't update for a while longer, the joys of working life. 
> 
>  
> 
> **Content warnings for this chapter: anxiety descriptions, vaguely described medical procedures/needles.**

Shiro left Lance, squared away in his bed with an intercom button near by, his headphones on, phone in hand, and eyes closed. He sighed, wondering how on… well not Earth, anymore, he got into this. He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath, getting ready to try and corral the pandemonium that Allura seemed to be part of, for a change.

“Okay, okay, everyone time to focus.” Shiro started as he entered the kitchen again. Pidge and Keith seemed to be wrapping up their re-telling of events to Hunk, who looked torn between enjoying it and feeling like he should scold them on his friend’s behalf.

“Is he okay? You were gone for a while.”

“Took him a bit to scrub off the marker, and I wanted to make sure he’d take medicine if he needed it. Its… not great. He’ll be okay though.” He leveled a look at the three guilty parties. “I’m disappointed. He’s sick and that could have been really mean-spirited.”

“It was only a prank,” Pidge pouted and Keith shrunk in his seat. “Lance is the one who taught me about that anyway. When he wakes up and is less grumpy, he’ll think its funny.”

“Don’t make assumptions, Pidge-“

“Makes an ass out of you and me, yeah, yeah.”

“Enough of this, come on. We had some really good team work today. We found a lot of good resources, and if we can figure out how to clear that area of hostiles, we could have a really strong point for an alliance there.”

\-----------------------------------------------  


Lance rolled over, face damp in tracks from when he was listening to his voicemails earlier, feeling stinging in his chest and fever prickling over his skin. When Shiro left, he was on top of his blankets, curled up, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Now he was awake and felt stiflingly hot, but even though he felt like he should be sweating buckets, he was still shivering.

“No fair!” He groaned out loud as another shiver shook his aching body. He coughed, sharp and dry. If he kept his eyes closed he could almost see steam rising off his own body. He wanted to roll over to see if he had any water on the bedside table, for the life of him he couldn’t remember if they brought any. Everything just hurt so badly. Even his hair. Turning his head was like having someone yank his hair, even if it was just getting caught on the pillow for a second before giving.

He groped around the bed for a second, finding his phone and looking at the screen for a second before letting it drop to his side. He could feel the intercom tucked up against his side, almost in his armpit, but his body didn’t want to move right to be able to reach it. He huffed in frustration.

After a few minutes, Lance reached up and grabbed the neck of his shirt behind his head and pushed himself to sit up. In as fluid a movement as he could manage he yanked his jacket, shirt, and undershirt off and threw them to the end of his bed. He flopped back, grabbing the intercom before he fell all the way back. The movement knocked him into another coughing fit and he whined into his hand as he scrubbed it over his burning hot face. It was almost like he wasn’t sure what was hotter, his palm or his face, but somehow each felt hotter than what it was touching.

He side-eyed the button in his hand. He really didn’t feel like he was up to any sort of moving, but he didn’t want to disturb anyone. That’s the whole reason they had this button- a few too many stubborn people living together trying to avoid inconveniencing each other lead to too many scary, and easily avoidable, situations already. So this was the button of ‘we recognise you’re too ill/injured/tired to help yourself right now, so help us out and use this rather than being pigheaded and getting yourself hurt’. He was just about to give in and press it when the console outside his door beeped, and the whoosh of the door stole his bleary attention.

“Oh! Sorry!” Hunk jumped and covered his eyes with his free hand. After a second of silence Hunk started, “You aren’t, uh, changing or something, right?”

“Nah,” Lance’s voice was rough, though it hurt a lot less to talk than he expected. Mostly his throat felt dry. “Too hot.” Even though his body decided to shiver and jolt him around.

“Ah. Think you’re up for something to drink? You slept clear through dinner, and its pretty late now.” Lance didn’t offer a verbal response, he just held out his hand, opening and closing it demandingly. Hunk laughed and brought Lance the pouch.

Lance grabbed it and immediately tucked it into his neck, it was biting cold, but it felt so good against his burning skin. Hunk put his hand on Lance’s forehead.

“Whoa,” Lance blinked his eyes open, when did he close them? “You’re really burning up, Lance.” Hunk’s face fell and he bit at his lip. Lance hummed, he was. He knew he was, but his body wasn’t taking the hint. He shivered again.

Hunk took notice how dry Lance was- not a drop of sweat for having such a high fever, and being curled up and asleep here for how long? He went to pull the pouch from Lance’s hands, just in case he was trying to hide the fact he couldn’t open it himself just then. Lance went to tell him off but was cut off by those knife-sharp coughs again. He moved the cold package from his neck to his chest and covered his mouth with one hand.

“I got another one, no worries.” Hunk did come prepared. Well, he actually meant to make sure Lance drank one, and then he was going to leave one for overnight. But if Lance was so desperate to cool himself off, Hunk wasn’t going to argue. He pulled out the spare and uncapped the straw. “Here ya go, want me to hold it?”

Lance shook his head, and pushed himself up on quaking arms. He felt so hot he was sure the whole ship must me spinning, but he still couldn’t stop shivering. He moved the closed pouch he had to the other side of his neck and held it there like a phone while he took a long drink from the opened one Hunk handed over. He almost choked as it caught in his overly dry throat.

“’M so hot, its not fair,” Lance whined. He felt like something was wrong, but couldn’t place it around his misery. He shook again and splashed some of the water out of the pouch. There was no way he had been shivering like this the whole time, was there? He was just so miserable, everything ached and burned and his head, god his head, and he couldn’t stop shivering even though he felt like he was sitting in the desert sun. His voice cracked, “Hunk.”

“I know, dude,” Hunk sat down beside Lance, he was so… This wasn’t normal sick Lance. Sick Lance joked and whined about inane things like the tv being boring, or how he wasn’t glamourous like in the movies. Lance just let himself slump bonelessly against Hunk, the clinginess seemed like the only true Lance thing to slip through right now. He kept sipping at the water, reluctantly. All he wanted was to down it in one gulp, but it was always better to play it safe and slow. His mom always said that. It was still too soon when it was empty, and he was reaching for the one tucked against his neck.

“Maybe leave that one there, okay? I can get you another one.” Lance nodded, but even as he was understanding that, he still kept a hold on Hunk’s arm and buried his too hot face into Hunk’s arm. “Come on, man, you gotta let me go get it.” Lance sighed a hot breath, he really needed more water, but he felt so full of it. It was going to get uncomfortable. Maybe he just had to suck it up and wait for a few minutes. He couldn’t figure out how to phrase it, so he just shook his head as his overheated body shook against his will and Hunk wrapped an arm around him, sighing.

“Hunk,” Lance tried a few times to say what he was thinking, but it varied in success. Mostly just dry, cracked whining that broke into painful coughing. But a few times he managed a word or two. He felt so… like everything was turning to dust and blowing away around him and leaving him spinning in a windstorm, stinging his skin with pricking heat. “’s too hot. Wrong hot.”

Hunk just kept rubbing his hand up and down Lance’s arm, he decided now that he couldn’t handle this on his own. Even with the other pouch of water being moved from the side of Lance’s neck to his forehead and back a few times, he wasn’t getting any more clear headed. Hunk picked up the intercom button off the bed and pressed it, waiting. Shiro answered, the purple light blinking on the small remote, showing it was received and who was coming.

 

“Hey, hows it going?” Shiro stepped in, taking in the way the room looked. Lance was stripped shirtless, half curled into Hunk’s side and Hunk was the one holding the comm. Didn’t look good, Lance was awake, but his eyes were half open at best, his lips were cracked, and he had a loose grip on the cold drink pouch, holding it to his own forehead.

“He’s way too hot, I think. I don’t know Shiro,” Hunk worried his hand up and down Lance’s arm again, “I know sick Lance, and this isn’t sick Lance.” Shiro nodded, and held up his hand for a quick moment before disappearing into the bathroom. The water ran for a moment, and he came back with a few wet cloths and the modified thermometer.

“Hey, Lance, I need to check your temp again,” Shiro tried to tug the water away as Hunk dislodged himself. Lance whined, but had no strength to hold it from Shiro’s gentle pull. “I got these too, that way you can drink that, if you want.” He gave Lance the thermometer so he could drape one of the cloths over his forehead, and with the other he went to wipe at Lance’s dry skin. He paused when Lance’s hand just sort of… fell. He wasn’t even trying to move it to check his temperature.

“Come on, man, you’re freaking me out.” Hunk shuffled on the spot a few feet away. Shiro took up the dropped device and slid it under Lance’s tongue himself, pressing the button to start it.

“You just sit tight there, Lance.” He half turned to Hunk, “did he drink anything when you came in?”

“Yeah, one of them. But I don’t know, he just kind of,” Hunk’s fingers worried against his gloves, “Shiro I’m kind of scared.”

“Its okay, if you’d feel better, maybe go talk to Allura and Coran for me? I’ll probably need to see what kind of medicine they have. I think Pidge is still awake too, if you want to take them with you.” Hunk’s jaw was clenching and unclenching as he shuffled his feet. “Please? I can’t be in two places at once.”

“Yeah, okay,” Hunk nodded a little too hard. Shiro saw him take a deep breath before leaving the room. His shoulders as he left were still tight with anxiety.

As the door shut behind him, the thermometer beeped, finally. Shiro pulled it out, giving Lance a quick smile. It read 104.6. Definitely too high, and by the look of it Lance was pretty dehydrated. The dripping towels Shiro had brought out were drying up already, any trail they left on Lance’s skin was absorbed or evaporated too quickly to be comfortable. He brushed back the younger Paladin’s hair, flipping the cloth there to the cool side.

“You don’t go half way, do you? Should have made you take some medicine before, I’m sorry.” Shiro had to take a steeling breath himself before he continued. “Whats going on Lance, talk to me, bud.”

“Its hot,” Lance croaked. Shiro swiped across his heated skin again with the one cloth. Lance whined, it hurt so much, it was grating against his skin, but it left such a cool, refreshing train for a few seconds afterwards. “Sick. I feel really sick.”

“I bet you do,” Shiro opened that other pouch of water, now that Lance was more able to take part in what was happening. “Here, you really need to drink some more.”

Lance did, but his body was so sluggish, and he had drank so much just a little while go, he couldn’t even manage half of this pouch before he felt uncomfortable. Shiro sighed, but put it to the side. He was going to need to see if they could get him hydrated somehow. This was probably alright, but it didn’t feel like enough. Not seeing how quickly this escalated and how hot Lance was at the moment.

Lance rolled to his side, leaning closer to Shiro. He was still shivering, and mumbling about the tremors every time. Shiro was glad for the rambling, and he used some of the water from the abandoned drink to re-wet the one cloth and rubbed it up and down Lance’s bare back to try and alleviate some of the heat that had been trapped by him laying still for so long.

 

It took longer than he had really hoped it would, but Allura and Coran were lead in by Pidge. Pidge hovered around the door, looking at the floor and only stealing quick glances upwards. They looked shaken, pale and nervous. Allura fell to a crouch beside Shiro and Coran bent at the waist to lean down.

“Um, I’m gonna go stand with Hunk. He…” Pidge looked out the door before flicking their eyes back to the situation at hand. “He’s kind of, you know Hunk.” Shiro nodded, he could hear Hunk pacing in the hall, his breathing was audible too. If he didn’t deescalate soon, they’d have even more to deal with, and Pidge was good at helping Hunk deescalate.

“What happened?” Allura looked at Lance, he was totally ashen, and panting in short gasps. Back arching away from the cold even as he pressed the other cold cloth to his own face desperately.

“His fever has gotten really high,” Shiro paused, hoping the other two remembered enough about the last time one of them had a human fever to not get confused about the physiological differences. “I’m just trying to cool him down, but he might need some other way to hydrate. I don’t know how it got this bad this fast, but his fever is above the threshold us humans consider safe.”

Lance curled in on himself as another shiver coursed through him, he still felt too warm, but with the stripes of coolness going down his back and face he was starting to feel a little more comfortable. If only the damn shivering would stop. It slowed down, for sure, but it still wrenched aching muscles and jostled his pounding head. He could hear the conversation, even though it sounded muddied and like someone was holding a blanket over his ears. He got the gist that it wasn’t great, and he was probably going to have to move. He coughed again when he tried to speak, his throat still sticking around his words and dry mouth not cooperating. Coran picked up on the meaning behind Lance’s struggle and handed him the water, which he did manage to drink a small mouthful of under his own power.

“Don’t want to move.”

“You might have to, Lance. Shiro is so worried,” Allura brushed her hand over his hair, following Shiro’s lead of contact for comfort. “I didn’t know humans could get this hot.” She frowned. Shiro was instructing Coran on running a bath, room temperature or maybe a little warmer than that at most, to help bring down Lance’s temperature without shocking his body.

“If this is like those other fevers, would you want frozen treats?” Allura felt her own guilt resurface a little. It was disturbing to have to coddle one of the paladins like this, but it was almost more disturbing to realize nobody noticed it getting this out of hand. Lance sneezed into the washcloth he held to his face, not responding otherwise.

“What about I.V fluids?” Coran was asking Shiro in hushed tones while he toyed with his moustache, “Dehydration of this sort is the same as the other, or do they differ?”

Allura remembered that too, coming back from one of the longer missions on a planet that ended up having very little drinkable water, Shiro himself ended up so badly dehydrated he had to describe the procedure. Alteans had the same procedure, called something different, but they had adopted the human term now that the dynamic was so strongly skewed away from an Altean majority.

“If you have the stuff to do it, I want to try this first, but I think we might have to.” Lance gave a quiet sob behind the washcloth, Allura wasn’t sure if he knew what was going on, or if he was just feeling his misery compounded with the news. She picked up the cloth Shiro left and started swiping it up and down Lance’s arm, as she had seen him do. He was like a portable heater, making her own skin slick with sweat where her wrist touched him while he stayed bone dry.

\-------------------------------------------------------- 

Pidge sat down with Hunk there in the hall, he was too worked up to really go very far. The two of them had sat cross legged on the floor and Pidge had started reciting formulas, trying to see if simple distraction might work. Hunk’s face was still pinched and he was hiccupping with the effort to control his breath.

“Pidge,” Hunk tried. He was really concerned, and he had calmed down enough he wasn’t going to be sick from nerves anymore, but Pidge kept going. “Pidge, c’mon, I’m done. I want to go somewhere else.”

“Why do coders have a rubber duck? Whats the rubber duck for, in theory?” Pidge kept going, rambling and rephrasing the questions. At this point they knew all the answers barely thinking, but that was the point to this.

“To figure out mistakes.” Hunk rubbed his eyes, he was feeling the late hour.

“Where’s the rubber duck?”

“I dunno, it usually depends on the person. On top of the pc? On the desk. Somewhere.”

“Where is the rubber duck?” Hunk noticed Pidge locked their stare downward. He opened his mouth to answer again, but Pidge repeated, louder, “Where is the stupid duck?”

“Hey, hey hey, Pidge,” Hunk moved his hand forward to rest on their shoulder. “Come on, lets get up. I’m good now.” Pidge looked back up, in a little bit of a daze. Hunk stood up and pulled their arm to get them up too.

“Sorry,” Pidge swiped at their eyes. They were tired, this was a stupid situation. They took a breath.

Coran stepped into the hallway, looking at the two of them standing there. Pidge with their head bowed, and Hunk holding on to their limp wrist. He placed a hand on each of their shoulders for a second before speaking.

“What are you two doing out here still. Its late, we all need rest,” He gave their shoulders a squeeze, “Lance will be fine, the mission just took a bit more out of him, but he’s a tough lad. What did I say about all you back when we started, like a pack of yelmars. Strong, and everyone takes care of each other.”

“We were just going to take a walk around, I think,” Pidge mumbled, “It was kind of scary. To see…”

“Maybe we can talk Keith into doing his cool down early, we can all do some exercise together, you know? Let the, I dunno adults? Leaders? They got it, right?”

“Yep, we’ve got it now, just going to give him a bit of rest and medicine to help out. He’ll feel much better come morning.” Coran released the two paladins, giving them a reassuring glance again.

“Thanks, Coran.” Hunk smiled at him. He felt really tired, but he knew he had to wear out that last little surge of nervous energy or else he’d never sleep. Keith had been squirreled away since dinner ended- he was a little off about the whole thing after Shiro got back before the meeting. He apologised pretty quickly for not thinking, and for getting Lance so worked up. He was probably worried too, even if he didn’t know what had just happened.

\------------------------------------------ 

Two vargas later found three of the paladins sitting on the training room floor in a circle. Two of the three leaning back on their hands talking about nothing in particular to pass time, the third curled up on the floor half awake listening to the conversation drift over their head. They had all done a wind down stretching routine, and told Keith about what had happened, and now none of them wanted to leave the room. They didn’t really want to leave the comfort of each other.

“Its messed up,” Pidge rolled to their back. “He was fine earlier…”

“He’ll be okay, you heard Coran. We’re probably going to see him at breakfast and feel pretty funny for being so freaked out.” Hunk stretched his legs out in front of him and lowered himself to lay back too.

Keith stayed sitting up for a few more minutes of silence before he followed suit and laid down on the training room floor with them. They kept up a disjointed conversation for a while until they all fell asleep. 

\------------------------ 

Down the same hall as the pod chamber, there was a larger medical room. Allura and Coran were trying to get Lance started on intravenous fluids while Shiro changed into dry clothing after dunking Lance, fancy jeans and all, in a tepid bath for a while. Lance had come to a bit more after that, and stumbled through the halls with help. He got himself changed into dry pajamas as well before falling into a half doze. He knew what was coming, but he was too tired to try and work out a compromise. He could feel himself heating up again even as he laid under a cool sheet with a fan trained on him and his still wet hair.

Allura sat on the side of the bed he was facing, dropping into his blurry field of vision. She smiled and said something to him that he lost in the fever haze, wrapped up in her accent and movements and missing the meaning entirely. She had brought over another cloth and a drink, which he couldn’t have had less interest in. He was too tired, he knew he needed it, but he just shut his eyes and shook his head. He felt her smoothing the cold cloth over his face again, a crackling hum rumbling out of his throat. It was nice.

Through Allura talking to him, and holding his attention with the cold cloth and keeping his eyes covered by it, Coran was able to sneak his way up and administer the infusion and set the tubing up with minimal fuss and distress. Lance shivered as he felt something cooler than himself start snaking up his arm but sighed as it helped cool the burning under his skin. He was readjusted to lay more on his back, to spread out his warm limbs to avoid trapping heat, and started to feel a little fuzzy in a good way for a change. Something was dulling his headache and his muscles seemed to calm down a little, finally. A cool hand danced over his cheek, and the cold cloth was left over his eyes and he felt like he could probably sleep for a week about now, and was happy to do so now that everyone stopped prodding at him.


End file.
